Pages

3/18/2014

Hot Docs Announces Festival Line-up

Joy of Man's Desiring

Hot Docs announced the complete line-up for the 2014 edition
of the festival today. This year’s
festival features 197 documentaries from 43 countries. Brian Knappenberger’s The
Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz was
announced as the opening night selection for Hot Docs 2014. The screening marks
the film’s international premiere. Star Trek actor and meme king George Takei joins the Scotiabank Big Ideas series for a chat following Being Takei. The must-see screening of the festival, though, might be a retrospective screening of Harlan County USA with director Barbara Kopple in attendance for an in-depth conversation. Doc fans will not want to miss that event!

Today’s programming announcement includes 24 homegrown
feature films that will screen at Hot Docs ’14 as part of the Canadian Spectrum.
These films by Canadian directors tell stories both local and global. Canadian
Spectrum sees filmmakers sharing stories from around the world and from their
own backyard. Notable Canuck entries include Denis Côté’s Joy of Man’s Desiring, which marks the director’s return to
documentary after 2012’s Bestiaire,
and John Kastner’s Out of Mind, Out of
Sight, which brings the director back to the Brockville Mental Health
Centre to continue the exploration of mental illness that began in last year’s
festival hit NCR: Not Criminally
Responsible. Kastner's film is one of seven NFB films screening at the festival. The National Film Board of Canada, a Hot Docs staple, also brings Julia Kwan's Everything Will Be Fine, which will have its World Premiere at the festival and screens in the Canadian Spectrum. The Canadian Spectrum also includes a healthy roster of short
films, while more shorts—Canadian and international—screen elsewhere in the
programme.With a list as intriguing as the one below, one could easily enjoy Hot Docs on CanCon alone!

The Canadian films at the festival are:

CANADIAN SPECTRUM:

The Backward Class
D: Madeleine Grant | Canada | 2014 | 91 min | World Premiere
Intent on breaking out of the cycle of poverty, the Dalit students of Shanti
Bhavan school in India prepare to make history by becoming the first from their
“untouchable” caste to take high-school graduation exams.

Before the Last Curtain Falls
D: Thomas Wallner | Germany, Belgium | 2014 | 86 min | World Premiere
Stunning cinematography and soaring music unite the tumultuous off-stage lives
of six aging Belgian transvestite and transsexual performers with scenes from
their European ballet Gardenia into a profoundly human portrait of love—and a
masterpiece of documentary art and contemporary dance cinema.

The Boy from Geita
D: Vic Sarin | Canada | 2014 | 79 min | World Premiere
A young Tanzanian boy with albinism survives a brutal attempt to steal his body
parts; witch doctors claim a potion made from them will bestow good fortune.
The promise of surgery in Canada offers him hope.

David & Me
D: Ray Klonsky, Marc Lamy | Canada | 2014 | 69 min | World Premiere
In 1985, a Brooklyn teen is convicted of pre-meditated murder based on
questionable testimonies. A tenacious filmmaker has taken up his cause,
presenting compelling new evidence aimed at freeing him after 28 years of
incarceration.

A Dress Rehearsal for an Execution
D: Bahman Tavoosi | Canada | 2013 | 60 min | Toronto Premiere
Jahangir Razmi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of political prisoner executions
in post-revolution Iran was so powerful, he hid his identity for 27 years to
avoid life-threatening repercussions. His reemergence prompts an
Iranian-Canadian artist to recreate the photo using actors.

Everything Will Be
D: Julia Kwan | Canada | 2014 | 86 min | World Premiere
Vancouver’s once-thriving Chinatown is disappearing as hip new ventures move
into vacant storefronts to the astonishment of the many elderly denizens.
Sundance award-winning director Julia Kwan crafts a heartwarming and
cinematically stunning ode to a community in transition.

Guidelines
D: Jean-François Caissy | Canada | 2014 | 76 min | North American Premiere
From the tense confines of the principal’s office to the lawless outdoors, a
series of tableaux illustrates defining teen moments and the daily trials of
adolescents at a rural Quebec secondary school.

Screening with Jutra

D: Marie-Josée St-Pierre | Canada | 2014 | 13
min | Toronto Premiere

I’ve Seen the Unicorn
D: Vincent Toi | Canada | 2014 | 61 min | World Premiere
On the tiny island nation of Mauritius, a determined young fisherman sets his
eye on becoming a champion jockey in a legendary horse-racing event that’s an
evocative reminder of the country’s colonial past.

D: John Kastner | Canada | 2014 | 88 min | World Premiere
With unprecedented access, multiple Emmy award-winner John Kastner returns to
the Brockville Mental Health Centre to capture patients struggling for control
of their lives in the face of a society that fears and demonizes them for their
violent acts.

The Secret Trial 5

D: Amar Wala | Canada | 2014 | 84 min | World Premiere
The film tells the shocking story of Canada’s security certificates, an unusual
policy mechanism used to imprison five Muslim men without charge for nearly 30
years combined, while the evidence against them remains secret.

Self(Less) Portrait
D: Danic Champoux | Canada | 2014 | 98 min | Toronto Premiere
In an era when social media is redrawing the boundaries between private and
public, 50 people reveal their most intimate thoughts to camera in this funny
and inventive montage exploring the diversity of human existence.

Slums: Cities of Tomorrow

D: Jean-Nicolas Orhon | Canada | 2013 | 81 min | Toronto
Premiere
Challenging conventional thinking, first-person stories from slum dwellers on
four continents and brilliant analysis by such critics as Robert Neuwirth make
the case that slums—home to a billion people worldwide—are the solution and not
the problem.

The Theory of Happiness
D: Gregory Gan | Canada | 2014 | 82 min | World Premiere
Deep in the Ukrainian countryside, a small but passionate commune attempts to
discover a recipe for happiness through mathematical formulas and political
poetry. Will their utopian dreams turn into a veritable nightmare?

JOHN ZARITSKY RETROSPECTIVE:

Leave Them Laughing
D: John Zaritsky | Canada, USA | 2009 | 90 min
Diagnosed with ALS, Carla Zilbersmith, a 46-year-old writer, singer, performer
and wickedly funny smart-ass is determined to embrace every single moment of
the short time she has left.

Romeo and Juliet in Sarejevo
D: John Zaritsky | Canada | 1994 | 90 min
A poignant and powerful documentary about the interlocking destinies of two
young lovers shot down amidst the carnage of besieged Sarajevo. The conflict
which convulsed Bosnia in the 1990s comes into focus through their story. Presented
with the Toronto Public Library as part of the Keep Toronto Reading Festival
2014.

Ski Bums

D: John Zaritsky | Canada | 2002 | 76 min
Looking beyond the sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll clichés, Ski Bums explores the
seductive power of a life devoted to the mountains through a group of extreme
skiers and snowboarders in Whistler, B.C.

The Wild Horse Redemption
D: John Zaritsky | Canada | 2007 | 91 min
At a prison in the high desert foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, some
inmates volunteer to spend 90 days taming wild horses, providing therapeutic
rehabilitation for both prisoners and mustangs.

D: Tim Toidze | France, USA, Canada | 2013 | 59 min | North
American Premiere
At the peak of the Cold War, a surreal and unbelievably fleeting love affair
developed between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and the American public.
This pre-Glasnost road movie is a kaleidoscopic collage of archival footage and
Khrushchev’s voice recordings.

My Place
D: Emmanuel Moonchil Park | Canada, South Korea | 2013 | 77 min | International
Premiere
Tensions arise when the director’s sister decides to become a single mom in
Canada. Far from South Korea where her more traditional parents live, the
family is forced to straddle two worlds in order to raise the child.

Screening with Chevette 83

D: D: Luis Oliva | Canada | 2013
| 4 min | Toronto Premiere

Steve

Jesse McCracken | Canada | 2013 | 8 min | World Premiere

Screening with The
Homestretch
D: Anne de Mare, Kirsten Kelly | USA | 2014 | 90 min | World Premiere
Three exceptional teens engage in a high-stakes fight to stay in school while
facing the incredible obstacle of being homeless. Struggling with abandonment,
isolation and instability, can they build the future they dream of?

Where I’m From
D: Claude Demers | Canada | 2014 | 78 min | North American Premiere
Two boys discover their world between the magical banks of the Saint Lawrence
River and the working class streets of Verdun. Clothing the hard knocks of
poverty in memories of adventure, the film renders childhood trauma into
cinematic poetry.

Screening with Bintou
D: Simone Catharina Gaul | Germany | 2014 | 64 min | North American Premiere
An enterprising young dressmaker from Burkina Faso yearns to show on Paris
runways. But while catering to white ex-pat clients, her emotional past threatens
her glamorous dreams in this insightful portrait of a modern African working
woman.

NEXT

Come Worry with Us!

D: Helene Klodawsky | Canada | 2013 | 81 min | Toronto
Premiere
Can band members rock out on stage one minute and change diapers the next?
Jessica and Efrim take their baby on a North American tour with Thee Silver Mt.
Zion Memorial Orchestra to find out if musicians—especially moms—can have it
all.

Mugshot
D: Dennis Mohr | Canada | 2014 | 52 min | World Premiere
What do Justin Bieber, Rob Ford and Conrad Black have in common? They all have
cameos in this smart and fascinating investigation into how mug shots,
originally intended to keep track of criminals, have been repurposed as art and
historical evidence.

*For screenings at the Isabel Bader Theatre (Apr. 28 &
29), audiences are invited before and after the film to view an on-site exhibit
of original vintage mug shots, presented in collaboration with the Stephen
Bulger Gallery.

Screening with Advanced
Style
D: Lina Plioplyte | USA | 2014 | 72 min | World Premiere
Seven of New York’s most stylish elderly women are profiled in this
invigorating portrait about the intersection of aging and beauty, based on the
popular blog by renowned fashion photographer Ari Seth Cohen.